


The Art of Making Crabdad

by ShadedNight



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Daves a dork, F/F, M/M, So yeah, and he decides to make karkats christmas gift, and rose and kanaya are very sneaky with the hwole secret santa thing, and then theres the mistletoe, but anyways, but it was originally a birthdat present, i dont have time to write another christmas fic, so have this one, this is a chrishmas gift to you guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 07:06:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5488172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadedNight/pseuds/ShadedNight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose and Kanaya set up a Secret Santa thing for Christmas, and they dont tell Dave until last minute. And its just Dave stalking pictures of crabdad in Karkats house for like the beginning. Then he proceeds to make his present for Karkat, and then some mistletoe fluff stuff goes doen. Thats really all there is to it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Art of Making Crabdad

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally a birthday gift for daveactualstrider on tumblr, but since i dont have time to write another christmas fic (more like i dont have any ideas), i decided to post this here too.  
> so i hope you guys enjoy it as much as the birthday person did!!
> 
> (it also has some art that i did :O)

Ok so you may or may not be freaking out right now.  
And this may be the worst Christmas you’ve ever had.  
Your satanic sister, and her equally cunning vampire girlfriend decided it was a brilliant idea to do Secret Santa this year. Of course it was a amazing idea; if it wasn’t for the fact that they waited until the last minute to tell you. You got the last remaining person.  
Now you know exactly what to get said person for Christmas, that's not the issue. It’s something you were already planning on getting -or rather make- for them, with or without the whole Secret Santa business.  
The problem is you like said person. Like a lot. Like to the point where they have manifested into you dreams and taken over your thoughts. Normally you’d joke around, saying that Strider’s have everyone falling at their feet, but you never thought that you’d be the one falling. It’s like a bad SBAHJ reference about falling down the stairs mixed with a bitch slap from karma. You guess it's true when people say that you should “be careful with what you say because it will happen to you”.  
But besides internally screaming and hating your sister with an ungodly passion, you set yourself up for embarrassment with this gift.  
You take the time out to do some research; and by ‘research’ you mean going to a certain crabby trolls house -hive...whatever- and looking at every picture he has of him and is lusy…? Luisus? No. Lusus? Yeah...lusus.  
What? It’s not like you had a full education on troll terms -that and you never really wanted to learn them up until recently. And no that is totally not because you are trying to impress said crabby troll.  
~*~  
Once you get to his hou-hive, you can see the troll struggling to put lights around a tree in his yard. You chuckle to yourself, and walk up to him. You wordlessly take the lights from his hands, earning a surprised “What in the fuck?!”, and wrap the colorful Christmas lights around the tree for him. When you’re done, you take a step back to admire your work with a smile.

“Ok, for one, do NOT ever sneak up on me like that again. And second, thank you for doing that for me. Your crispmas lights are hell to use when you’re barely past five foot and wrapping a tree that’s a good foot and a half taller. Why the fuck are trees so tall anyways?” You suppress a smile when he says ‘crispmas’.

“Because they need a short crabby troll, like you, to struggle and complain about stringing lights on them.”

“Oh haha, funny asshole. Why are you here anyways?’

“What are you not happy that I blessed you with my presence? Karkat I thought we had a good connection, what happened?”

“The only connection we have is going to be my fist to your face if you don’t shut up.” You gasp and place your hand over your heart as if you were offended.

“Karkat! I expected better from you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just answer my question already.” You shrug.

“I dunno. Just wanted to hang I guess.” No way will you tell him your true intentions. Like how would you even say that anyways? ‘Oh no I’m just here to stalk pictures of your crabby dad thing and secretly take pictures of them for your Christmas present.’ Yeah...no.

“Alright, whatever. Come in you jerk.” You smile and follow him into his hive -and shamelessly staring at his ass the entire time.  
When you get inside, Karkat immediately takes off to the kitchen, probably to get you a drink or something like the amazing host he is. You take this time to look around his living room, snapping shitty pictures of as many pictures of Karkat's lusus as you can before he comes back. About thirty seconds later you hear a thud from the kitchen, and a quiet string of profanities from the troll. He must have dropped whatever he was getting. You quickly put your phone back in your pocket and sit on the couch as he comes back into the living room.

“Why the fuck do you like this weird fruit juice? it looks like human piss.” He throws you the bottle of apple juice and a straw.

“I don’t know what youre talking about man, AJ is the best. And I can assure you it is not human piss. Have you even tried this delicacy, Karkat?”

“No and I do not wish to try it either.” You frown, opening the bottle and putting the straw in it.

“Aw come on, just a teeny, tiny sip?” He shakes his head and you continue to pester him until he agrees.

“Fine fine! For fucks sake shut the hell up and I’ll try your stupid human piss fruit juice.” You smile in victory and hand him over the bottle of juice. He reluctantly takes a sip through the straw and hands it back to you.

“Sooooooo?”

“Its not as horrible as I thought it was.” He growls when you poke his arm.

‘You like it.” He refuses to answer. “You totally have fallen victim to AJ’s irresistibleness.”

“Will you shut up? I never said that.”

 

‘You never denied it either.” That gets you one of the couch pillows to the face.  
The two of you end up beating each other down with pillows for the next twenty minutes, and then finally settle down when Karkat falls off the couch. He’s smiling, and just calming down from laughing so much. You swear you’ve never seen him so purely happy like this before and now you have a strong sense to keep him like that. You help him back up on the couch, hoping he doesn’t notice how red your face got while you were staring at him just moments before.

“Ok, now that that’s over, what should we do now?” He’s still a little bit breathless, and he’s looking at you, waiting for you to answer. You break away from your thoughts of how adorable his voice is, and shrug. You need a second you regain your non-existent cool before you answer or else you’ll just sound like a pathetic squeak toy. You clear your throat and answer after about ten seconds of awkward silence.

“I dunno. I didn't come here with a plan. We could just chill and watch some shitty movies.” He calls you a dipshit for not knowing what to do, but sets up the tv to watch some movies.  
Eventually you find yourself using his lap as a pillow, just as you always do anymore when watching movies with him. He pets through your hair as both of you complain about how horrible the special effects are and he solely complains about how completely unrealistic the side romance is. YOu find that way more endearing than you would like to admit.  
Soon it’s late and he tells you to go fuck off and do something other than bother him for once. You immediately beg for forgiveness, and say “I’ll change babe, trust me. Just don’t kick me out.” And as you’re explaining about how you don’t want the divorce to go this way, he kicks you in the knee, causing you to fall pathetically on your ass.  
“Seriously, Dave? I don’t care about your messed up human marriage ritual and divorce shit, just get out of my hive. In case you haven’t gotten the memo, Rose and Kanaya are throwing a Christmas party in a week and I have have the pleasant duty to make all the desserts this year.” You laugh, nodding your head in understanding. You remember last year when the girls hosted a party and had Jane do the baking; the list and amount of treats needed were even overwhelming for her.

“Alright dude, I’ll leave you to Rose and Kanaya’s Catering Order from Hell and leave. Just don’t burn your house down.”

“I won’t, unlike you.”

“Hey, that was one time, and I just put the macaroni box too close to the stove.”

“Whatever, your excuses mean nothing.” You roll your eyes and finally open the door to leave. You're about a step and a half out the door when Karkat speaks again.

“Thanks for coming over, Dave. Everyones just been busy with this Christmas shit and I haven’t really talked to anyone for a few days. I may hate all of you with a burning passion, but I do enjoy company once in awhile.” You turn around, smiling like the dork you are.

“No problem man. I’m always up for ‘bother the fuck out of Karkat’ time.” He rolls his eyes and you totally don’t miss the short purr he gives off as he nuzzles into your neck when you hug him. You both stay like that for way longer than you really need too, and when you both finally decide to let go, both of you faces are red.

“Uh...yeah...I’m gonna go now. I have to...get a present for my person for the whole Secret Santa thing. Wouldn’t want Rose to yell at me for not getting any thing, or waiting too last minute, you know? It was nice hanging out, though. Gotta do that some more...Well I mean we do hang out a lot but you know what I mean. Just..um...bye Karkat.” You rush a small wave and hope to God that he didn’t mind you rambling utter nonsense like that.  
You glance back, and he’s just standing there in the doorway still, his face just a little red still. You swear you catch and almost shy smile as he waves to you before retreating back into his house.  
Man ther things he can do to your stomach needs to seriously stop. Your cool can only get you so far, and he’s about to run you right off your Cool Zone right to I’m An Awkward Shit Lane.  
But right now you can’t waste time thinking about Karkat. You have to think about the gift you’re going to spend the next week making for Karkat. So it’s about high time you get your ass in gear and head to the art store.  
You have no idea why you decided to put yourself through this, but it's Karkat. And for some amazing reason, you have the utmost need to make sure he has the best of everything. And by best, you mean probably the most horribly constructed Christmas present ever. But that didn’t matter. You wanted this present to have all the meaning in the world; and while he’s gazing at its beauty you might grow up and ask him out. But the likelyhood of you actually growing a pair and doing that is slim to none. You’d rather burn with that macaroni box than confess to the most adorable troll in the universe.  
After an internal argument about whether to get the regular fabric or the more fuzzy fabric, you finally decide on the fuzzy one. After that it was getting some gray felt, a bunch of stuffing, a cheap sewing kit and a nice collection of band-aids for when you stab yourself with the sewing needles.  
Now it's off to get home and make this thing happen.  
As you’re walking back home with your collection of craft things, you spot a jewelry store having a sale. Now, usually you wouldn’t care about something like this, but the ring on display catches you attention.  
Its perfect, except for the price. The thing would drain your wallet to practically nothing. But you didn’t care. It was for Karkat after all.  
A few minutes and a empty wallet later, you walk out of the jewelry store with a silver crab ring. You even paid extra to get the Cancer symbol and a heart engraved on it.  
This is the most expensive Christmas you’ve ever paid for, and it’s well worth it.  
~*~  
Now back in your apartment, you pull up all the pictures of Crabdad you took. This was going to be fun.  
You map out the basic shapes of the lusus on a few sheets of paper, and cut them all out. Then you trace them on your fabric, making sure you leave a decent amount of extra seam allowance around the outline.  
Huh, maybe those sewing lessons Rose forced upon you wasn’t such a bad idea after all.  
But then again this was you, and by the time you can’t keep your eyes open anymore, you have only accomplished making the body of Crabdad.  
This was going to take longer than you thought, and you end up falling asleep while attempting to make your third crabdad head.  
In the morning, you’re really glad that you had all day to figure out how to make this thing. And by the end of the next day, you end up with a pretty decent looking crabdad plush.  
God you really hope Karkat like this thing, you spent three days on it and now your hand has about six band-aids on it.  
With a triumphant smile you place plush crabdad down on a shelf and think about what you should do with the ring. You could always keep it in the box, but that would too expected. After a little thought, you end up taking another trip to the art store. You get some chain that's big enough for a bracelet and some clips. Once you’re back at home, you attach a clip to the chain and wrap it around crabdad’s neck.  
You think he sports the ring-necklace really well.  
~*~  
It’s the day of the party and you just finished stuffing crabdad and a ton of tissue paper in a gift bag. Wrapping presents was never your thing, and you would have no idea where to start with wrapping a stuffed lusus.  
But now, as you head over to Rose and Kanaya’s house, you suddenly feel super anxious. What if he doesn’t like it? What if he thinks you’re weird for making him something like that and ends up hating you? Wait...he won’t even know it was you who made it so that wouldn’t happen. Good thing for this Secret Santa.  
You don’t even bother knocking on the door when you arrive, and you quickly place your gift bag under the tree before someone spots you. You don’t need anyone knowing what present is yours.  
After that you join everyone in the kitchen to get some food, share some hugs, and say ‘hi’ to everyone there. Besides the panicking fear of Karkat hating your gift, this was really enjoyable.  
And surprisingly, Karkat was really good at baking. He made so much shit though, the poor guy must have been in the kitchen for the past two days to get all this food done. You compliment every cookie, cupcake and piece of cake you eat. He tells you to stop following him around while you’re eating. You laugh and keep doing it until it's present time.  
Present time has turned your stomach upside down and you just want to leave. All you can do is watch everyone open their gifts happily while you anxiously shift from one foot to the other. The only time you calm down is when you get your present. It's a little cat in sunglasses trinket; you smile and say that that was the single most amazing gift anyone had gotten you. Nepeta seemed extra happy to hear you say that; you’re pretty sure she's the one that got it for you.  
And of course your gift to Karkat is the last one. Rose sneaks a smirk in your direction as she hands Karkat the bag. You’re positive she planned this whole thing out.  
Your sister is Satan and you won’t hear anything other wise.  
Especially since she shushes everyone while Karkat awkwardly holds the bag. You can tell he really doesn’t want all the attention on him like this. But once the whole room is quiet and looking at Karkat, Rose allows him to open your gift.

The room is suddenly filled with gasps and a few ‘awws’ here and there, but the only thing you can really focus on is how bad your stitches are, how unproportionate everything is, and that one of the spikes on crabdad’s back is slightly off center. He’s going to notice all of the mistakes and hate it and he’s going to think the ring is too much. If only you could just sneak-

“Holy shit Dave.” You look up, Rose seems just as surprised as you are. She probably didn’t mean to say that out loud, but know your secret is out and literally everyone is staring at you in some weird mix of surprise and awe. You feel very sick very vulnerable like this. Karkat’s going to figure out you like him and he’s going to think you’re just some weird creep.  
When you look up at him though, his face is completely red and he just keeps looking back and forth between you and the plush crabdad. It’s like he can’t believe you made this. You can’t believe you made it either.You’re also surprised you haven’t dropped dead from embarrassment yet either. You hear a round of excitement and people complimenting you on you gift to Karkat. You’re a little numb to the world right now, so you only reply with meek ‘thank yous’. And at some point you were pushed to the middle of the living room, along with Karkat apparently because he runs face first into your chest.  
It’s at that point you realize it’s just you and him in the room now. Was everyone in on this? Did they all plan for you to die of embarrassment? And from the looks of it, Karkat isn’t too pleased about this either.  
Actually, his face is almost drained from color, besides a dusting of red on his cheeks still, and he’s staring at you like a deer in headlights.  
You may actually just die of embarrassment, there’s no doubt about it.  
You take this chance to apologize.

“Karkat, I’m sorry. Like i didn’t know they’d do this, and I’m sorry about my gift. I know its a little overboard, I just wanted to make it a good gift, you know? I mean.., if you don’t like it I’ll take it back and get you something else. LIke agift card or some more trashy movies or--”

“Shut up. The gift is fine. Perfect even. It’s just umm…”

“What? I’m now completely lost here. I’m so glad you like my present to you, but you look terrified right now and it’s kinda scaring me.” Instead of an answer, he glances up and you follow his gaze.  
Suddenly you realize why Eridan was pouting in the middle of the room while everyone avoided him.  
Your sister put mistletoe in the center of the room.  
Well fuck.

“Oh…” You look back down at Karkat and he’s nervously playing with the plush arms of crabdad.

“Yeah...umm. You...You don’t have to kiss me, you know? We could just say we did and walk away from this.” You’re pretty sure the quietness of his voice is what hurts the most.

“What? And pass up the opportunity to mack on the most romance swooned troll there is?” You try joking around, but the fact that your voice cracked nervously twice probably didn’t help much.

“Do you want to kiss me?” You don’t say anything, but your face is most definitely getting warmer. He apparently takes you silence as a good thing and slips your shade off your face.  
You look like a lovestruck fool and you know it. But do you care anymore? No, not really.  
His smile is small, but you return it anyways. The last thing you can really comprehend is him getting closer and your mind getting fuzzier.  
Oh, and how warm kissing Karkat makes you feel.

You and Karkat both agree to do the kissing thing more often.  
And you decide that this was the best Christmas you’ve ever had.


End file.
